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Nintendo prevails in Mii patent case

Judge throws out company's patent claim wholesale -- so never had to decide if Nintendo's arguments were necessary.

Christian Nutt, Contributor

December 21, 2015

1 Min Read
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Newsbrief: Today Nintendo announced it has prevailed in a patent case against an outfit known as RecogniCorp, which had sued the company over a patent on storage systems for police sketch-artist data, which it asserted Nintendo violated with its Mii characters.

In Federal court, Judge Richard A. Jones ruled that the patent itself was invalid, as mathematical operations cannot be patented. Nintendo's arguments were not considered in court.

"Nintendo will continue to protect its products and innovations against accusations of patent infringement," said Ajay Singh, Nintendo of America’s Director of Litigation and Compliance.

Nintendo often wins in patent cases; it prevailed last month in a case brought over its console hardware, for example. Its only recent major loss came against Dutch tech giant Philips, which won a suit against Nintendo in 2014. The two companies entered into a licensing agreement soon after.

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